Newcastle’s Tyneside Cinema is looking for young people aged 15-18 from across the North East to take part in its free Northern Stars Documentary Film Academy .The Academy will run from 1 September to 3 December, and the deadline for applications is Monday 8 August.
Participants will work with leading industry professionals to gain hands-on experience of all aspects of film production and make their own short documentary films about the world they live in. The Academy workshops at Tyneside Cinema’s Pop-Up Film School will give them training in directing, producing and editing, and provide them with everything they need to make exciting and original documentaries. The finished films will be shown at Tyneside Cinema in December 2016 at a special premiere for family and friends.
Many of the films that have been made as part of the Northern Stars Documentary Academies have gone on to be nominated for and win awards, including Closure which won Best Factual Film in the Professionally Supported category at the Royal Television Society’s Young People’s Media Festival, and whose director, Georgia Middlemiss, was awarded Tyneside Cinema’s Sarah Barton Award.
This is the fourth year of the Northern Stars Documentary Film Academy , which has been made possible by the sponsorship of intu, who co-owns intu Eldon Square in Newcastle and intu Metrocentre in Gateshead.
Their partnership with Tyneside Cinema began in 2012, when intu Eldon Square offered the Cinema an unprecedented opportunity to create a Pop-Up Film School in a shop unit on High Friars. The success of this unique filmmaking facility led intu to look at other partnership opportunities with the Cinema and the resulting development of the Northern Stars Documentary Film Academy in 2013 has become a key part of intu’s corporate responsibility strategy focusing on support for young people in the North East, alongside intu’s highly regarded Retail Gold and World Class Retail Gold work experience programmes.
Alexander Nicoll, intu’s corporate responsibility director, said:
“We are delighted to be working with Tyneside Cinema for a fourth year and the Documentary Film Academy offers real skills opportunities for young people accepted into the annual programme. The combination of these skills and experiences can certainly open doors to top jobs and rewarding careers.”
Ian Fenton, Tyneside Cinema’s Creative Director added:
“Tyneside Cinema is delighted to invite young people from across the North East to apply for the 2016 Northern Stars Documentary Film Academy, and very grateful to intu, whose generous sponsorship of the Academy has enabled us to offer this incredible free opportunity for a third year running.
“It was a pleasure working with last year’s participants and helping them learn the skills to make their own short documentaries. We were extremely impressed by the quality and creativity of the films they made, and we can’t wait to meet this year’s intake of young filmmakers this summer and discover the stories they want to tell about living in the North East.”
To apply, go to: www.northernstarsacademy.co.